“Family Day?” asked Uzumaki Naruto, the Seventh Hokage. His voice echoed in his office, which was cluttered with scrolls and half-sealed cardboard boxes. He tossed the document he was reading onto his desk and lifted his face to turn a bewildered gaze on Nara Shikamaru, Advisor to the Hokage.
“Mm-hmm. They want us to give the new holiday a name. The new townspeople,” Shikamaru added by way of explanation, but it still didn’t click for Naruto.
“A name?” he probed further. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Dunno. Guess it’s like how you give a festival a name. And those new townsfolk have a different understanding of the word holiday to begin with.”
“Hmm.” Naruto’s reply was vague as he fixed his gaze on the door to his office, as though he could see through it to the Hokage Rock on the other side, and the new town that spread out beyond that.
Some years earlier, Pain’s attack at the start of the Fourth Great Ninja War had turned the village of Konohagakure into an empty wasteland, nothing but crushed houses in the cratered earth. The very foundation of the village had been ripped out and sent flying. But one thing remained untouched: Hokage Rock. And Konoha was Hokage Rock. It was unthinkable to the people of the village to rebuild Konoha in a new territory, turning their backs on the generations of Hokage who had watched over them for so many years. The sentiment that they would rebuild in this place led to the village’s recovery, along with other astounding developments.
The general store, in operation since the founding of the village, transformed itself into a twenty-four-hour general store that would stay open even after sunset. Steel rails were laid in and outside of the village, and a long, slender iron box called the Raisha began to run along them. Exchanges with other villages became much easier thanks to this innovation, now that a return trip no longer required several days.
Tall buildings sprang up behind Hokage Rock, and the massive monitors built into their walls showed news not just from the Land of Fire, but from every other nation as well. The elder advisors were against these abominations. They insisted it was outrageous to have buildings overlooking Hokage Rock, but there was no denying the buildings’ convenience, and the complaints gradually ceased.
The apartment buildings made room for hundreds of new residents, enticing even more people to move to the village, until the population was said to be more civilian than ninja. Even the academy from which Naruto had graduated saw a drop in applications to below capacity for ninjutsu subjects and was forced to share the facility with regular classes. Those were just the times they lived in. Although perhaps this was proof that the people of the land were at peace.
No longer hidden, the village of Konohagakure was now the largest city in the Land of Fire.
Naruto and the other natives of the village called this string of tall buildings “the new town.” Of course, that was simply for convenience; there was no qualitative difference between new and old in Konoha. Even if the majority of people in the new town were not ninja, they were all equally family to Naruto.
Of course, differences in the lifestyles between those who were ninja and those who were not often came up. One of these differences was over holidays. The ninja world was unstable and inconsistent, with no set work hours, and it was difficult to plan for a particular day off. Holidays were, therefore, days when the ninja happened not to have any missions. Few ninja placed any special importance on days off since they never knew when they would be.
But for civilians, a holiday was a scheduled day of relaxation. And these non-ninja requested a day off every week, along with some kind of commemorative holiday. Holidays were certainly where the conflicting lifestyles came into play.
“Well, just making the day red on the calendar’s a little ineffectual and all.” Naruto picked up his Hokage seal. “I guess it could have a name. Got no reason to be against, believe it.” He pushed the seal onto the document in front of him.
“Then that’s settled.” Shikamaru immediately tossed the paper into the “approved” tray.
And so, Family Day became a holiday in the village of Konohagakure.
“But, ‘Family Day,’” Naruto mused. “What does that
mean exactly?”
“According to the application, it’s a day to strengthen the bond between parent and child,” Shikamaru told him. “Pretty hefty burden for a single day to carry. I guess it’s basically for families to go out and do something together. Shopping, a trip, stuff like that.”
“The bond between parent and child… Huh.” A shadow fell across Naruto’s face. He thought of his own children,
Boruto and Himawari. When had they last spent time
together, anyway?
“Maybe we ought to go spend some time that day with our kids too.” Shikamaru’s voice grew brighter, perhaps guessing at Naruto’s thoughts. “You have to take a break at home sometimes. I know you just fall into bed. You barely even say hi to your kids, yeah? I’ll help make some time in your schedule.”
“Heh heh, thanks!” Naruto and Shikamaru exchanged smiles and then dropped their eyes to the floor. The pile of documents spilling off the desk and scattered onto the floor could easily be mistaken for a pattern on the ground at this point. “We’ll make the time, yeah?”
“Yeah.” But Shikamaru’s voice sounded the slightly hopeless.
“Family Day,” Naruto replied, weakly. “It’ll work out. I’m definitely gonna go home. Believe it!”